“Do you mean she was your dear friend?”
“Somethin’ like that.” Moll’s half-smile and narrowed eyes held volumes. “Dear Mistress Emilia, you’re a fine, lovely woman, smart as a whip. Ye deserve better than what ye’ve had. But ye try too hard to understand things. All things can’t be understood. Least of all love.”
Emilia looked into Moll’s keen gray eyes. “No. Love least of all.”
After a pause, Moll set down her wine cup. “Are ye well enough now?”
“Aye. I thank you for coming home with me. I’m grateful. I needed company.” Emilia smiled.
“May I come again?” asked Moll.
“Of course.”
Moll rose, took Emilia’s hand, and kissed it like a gallant, holding it a moment in her own. “I shall see thee anon, Mistress,” she said with a smile and a wink.
After she had gone, Emilia sat a while more by the fire, watching as the logs glowed and crumbled. Finally, she decided she did not understand everything. “Least of all love,” she whispered.
And so began Emilia’s friendship with Moll Frith—who had more irons in the fire than anyone Emilia had ever known. She had a house in Charing Cross that was also her place of business where she sold all kinds of stuff. She did not say where she got it, but she had a crew of men who worked for her, and sometimes she went on the road—“to buy goods to sell,” she said.
When she came to dinner one day, she explained, “Midday dinner is early for me, as my day goes from two in th’ afternoon till cockcrow.” Another evening, holding forth, she said, “I never could bide girls’ clothes an’ things. I was always wi’ th’ boys, fightin’ and runnin’ and takin’ many a bang and blow. I swore I’d never dress nor live as a woman, and I never have.” She paused and drew on her pipe. “There are women in plenty like me, and all kinds in between. I knew a girl in Southwark could beat me in a fair fight, and then get herself gusseted up an’ curled and primped wi’ ’er paint an’ powder on and sashay out on a gentleman’s arm for a’ th’ world like the Queen o’ th’ May.” She shook her head. “An’ there’s a countess can outride and outshoot any man. She has her special friend, another titled lady. They go out a-huntin’ in doublet and trunk hose, ridin’ astride on men’s saddles.” She stretched out her legs to the fire in her customary way.
“I told you I dressed as a boy myself,” said Emilia. “It was only for a few months, when I was seeing . . . the player.”
“That gentleman?”
Emilia nodded.
“Do ye mind my askin’, Mistress Emilia, about your trouble when you lost your place? I’m more than curious. It might be I could help ye.”
“I taught music and singing to a young lady,” Emilia said, smiling at the memory. “The mother was kind to me and helped me when I was in great need, in body and spirit.” Emilia told Moll about her unlikely friendship with Lady Cumberland, struck up over plants and medicinal herbs. Then, hesitating, she told of the unscrupulous doctor who gave her harmful medicines.
Moll’s eyes narrowed. “I know one o’ that ilk. He likes to make conquests of his women clients, poor fools. He’s a bad ’un.”
“Someone told this lady that I . . . that I was . . . practicing the black arts with him.”
“And were ye?” asked Moll, looking as though nothing would surprise her.
“No, I was not!” exclaimed Emilia. “It’s been nine years since I’ve last seen the doctor.”
“Was he by chance Doctor Simon Forman?”
Emilia nodded and looked down.
“I thought so,” said Moll with a snort. She pondered while the fire hissed and sputtered. “Someone wants to do ye harm, that’s for sure.” She poured herself more wine, leaned back, and closed her eyes. “Who might have it in for ye?”
“I know not,” said Emilia. “I’ve thought on it over and over. Wait . . . I remember leaving Doctor Forman’s and seeing a carriage drive up. A lady in a thick veil got out and went into the doctor’s house. As she approached the door, she turned, and her eyes met mine with such hatred! I felt cold all over.”
“You didn’t recognize her? Or her livery?”
“Her livery! I didn’t even think to look. I believe her coachman wore blue.”
“Lady Pembroke? Her livery is blue.”
“No! She was nothing like her.”
“You could not see her face,” said Moll.
“I am sure it was not Lady Pembroke.”
Moll was quiet so long that Emilia wondered whether she had fallen asleep. Then she leapt to her feet, startling Emilia. “I’ll ask Luce; she knows everyone. And I’ll inquire among the rufflers an’ upright-men in the City and suburbs.”
“Rufflers? Upright-men?”
“Never ye mind. I’ll find out who your veiled lady was, never fear.”
Moll returned in two days with news. “Lady Margaret Hoby went to the good doctor in 1601. She’s married to Sir Edward Hoby, and his livery is blue. D’ye know her?”
“Lady Margaret—Meggie! Meggie Carey!” Emilia bolted upright. “We were both educated by the Countess of Kent.”
“Was she friendly to you?”
“When we were girls, she was. But I became her father’s mistress,” said Emilia. “And after that, she hated me and would not speak to me. She insulted me before the maids of honor at Court.”
“I talked wi’ a rogue that had been her coachman. He said he drove her to Billingsgate to see Doctor Forman a few times in 1601. But the thing is . . . The lady’s dead.”
Emilia pounded one fist into her hand. “I can’t get her to admit her lie now. But I can try again to speak with Lady Cumberland.”
Emilia sent yet another letter to Lady Cumberland, but it returned unopened. Then one morning a fine carriage drove up, and an elegant, quick-stepping figure alighted. Emilia watched, unbelieving, from a window as Lady Anne Clifford—slim in dark blue—approached her door and knocked.
Heart in throat, Emilia waited.
Lady Anne walked firmly into the parlor, head held high. Emilia thought that Anne had more than fulfilled her early promise. She had married Richard Sackville, who on the recent death of his father had become Earl of Dorset.
“My Lady Dorset.” Emilia sank into a deep curtsey.
Anne’s face betrayed nothing, but her eyes lit up at the sight of Emilia, and the corners of her mouth twitched as though she wanted to smile. “Mistress Lanyer,” she said.
“Please sit, my lady.” Emilia gestured toward the chair. “Marcella, bring wine and comfits.” She drank in Anne’s beauty and grace and could not speak for a moment.
Anne glanced around and turned her dark, serious eyes on Emilia. “My mother doesn’t know I’m here.”
Emilia’s heart sank: Lady Cumberland had not sent her.
“I came because I hoped you might be able to help a friend of mine.”
“Yes, my lady, if I can,” said Emilia.
“It’s Frances, Lady Essex,” said Anne. “She has gotten herself in deep trouble with a”—Anne glanced around and lowered her voice—“a sorcerer.”
Emilia felt cold. “I’m sorry, my lady. I cannot help you.”
“I heard that you know someone who practices the black arts.”
Emilia gave her a level look. “Despite what you may have heard, my lady, I have no knowledge of sorcerers or sorcery.”
“But you did at one time?” asked Anne, eyes narrowed.
Emilia did not answer.
“Mistress Lanyer,” said Anne, sitting forward, “when I learned my mother had dismissed you, I begged her to call you back, but she would not. Whatever anyone says, I cannot believe that you would do anything evil.”
Emilia’s eyes filled, and she blinked hard. “Thank you, my lady.”
Anne clasped her hands. “Frances is in trouble. A wicked man has ensnared her. She met him through a woman of low character who promised that he could help Frances get rid of her husband—by potions and sorcery.”
Emilia drew in
her breath.
“Yes, it is that bad,” said Anne. She turned around just as Marcella came in with wine in two cups and a plate of comfits. At Emilia’s gesture, Marcella placed them on a table and, with a glance at Anne, left the room.
Anne took a sip. “The woman brought her to this odious sorcerer.” She looked directly at Emilia. “Are you sure you do not know him? His name is Simon Forman.”
Emilia shook her head. “Do not, my lady, I beg you, ask me to have aught to do with him.”
“Please,” Anne said, her voice urgent. “Please, Mistress Lanyer, I beg you to help Frances.”
“Lady Dorset, you do not know what you are asking.”
Anne gave her an imploring look. “I do!”
How can you? thought Emilia. From privileged, pampered child of noble parents to a countess yourself, with no worry of how to pay for food or roof, no fears of constables or men seeking your body or your soul, no constant worry about how to survive beyond the next day or week . . . how can you know? Yet as Anne looked into her face, Emilia could not harden her heart. Anne’s resemblance to her mother was strong—the dark hair in the peak on her forehead, the large, serious eyes, the gentleness and strength of will, along with an air of toughness that was all her own. Emilia remembered the little girl at the clavier, frowning and clenching her teeth as she struggled over and over with a difficult run of notes until she mastered it; the girl in the elegant gown dancing with her young man at Court; the proud young woman who stood fearless on a wall overlooking a valley.
“My lady,” said Emilia, “how may I help you?”
Relief on her face, Anne told her of the trouble Frances had gotten herself into. “It started with her asking him for potions to make her husband incapable of—making her his wife. It grew to more. I think she has been getting poisons from him.” She bit her lip. “She says little, but what she says horrifies me. She meets him in the dead of night in his secret chamber, where he works spells using figures of wax.”
Emilia nodded.
“He demands total loyalty from her. He asks her to call him ‘father’ and he calls her ‘my daughter.’ He anointed her in a secret ceremony; she will not divulge the details. He began to kiss her often, and then he began to seek—other favors.”
Emilia closed her eyes. Poor Frances.
“She will hear nothing against him, but insists he is her friend,” Anne continued. “But she looks ill—dark circles under her eyes, pale, thin. She trembles at every sound. I think she is afraid of him.”
“What do you ask of me?”
“Go to him, Mistress Lanyer,” urged Anne. “Go and tell him to leave her alone.”
“No!” declared Emilia. “I will not go near him. I dare not, my lady, for my own soul’s sake.”
Anne looked at her, dark eyes imploring. “What if I went with you?”
“No, my lady! You must not. It is impossible.” But suddenly she had a thought. “But there is someone who might . . .”
The two of them took a wherry to Lambeth at night, cloaked and hooded. When they reached the island, they set out on foot across the marsh. Moll led the way, carrying a rushlight. Frogs and night cicadas made a cacophonous chorus around them. They followed the mushy footpath, overhung with cattails and marsh grasses. The ground squelched. Emilia felt her foot sink once and hastened to pull it out. Moll took her elbow. “All right?”
Emilia nodded. “Thank you for coming with me.”
The doctor’s house stood on the edge of Lambeth Marsh. They followed a path to an open gate. When they reached the tall, solitary house, Moll knocked.
A woman came to the door, dark, thin, unsmiling. “Leave your man out here in the hall.”
“My friend comes with me.”
The woman looked them both up and down, then gestured for them to follow.
They went through a small foyer, then through a hall where the only light came from rushlights stuck on the walls. The woman knocked on a door.
“Mistress Lanyer is here to see you,” called the woman.
A silence; then a man’s voice said, “Enter.”
Simon Forman looked thinner and more stooped than before. His wildly curling hair was now completely gray. He wore a long robe, and about his neck hung a chain decorated with symbols and letters. His eyes still held their old yellow glimmer, but dark circles like bruises lay under them.
“Mistress Lanyer.” He inclined his head, voice heavy with mock courtesy. He glanced at her companion, swathed in the heavy cloak. “Who is this?”
“A friend of mine.”
Emilia glanced around the chamber. It was outfitted like the cellar in Billingsgate: black curtains, a cabinet, a table cluttered with various items, candles.
“Doctor Forman, I will not waste time. Leave Frances, Countess of Essex, alone.”
The doctor snorted. “What are you to her?”
“I am her friend.”
He laughed. “One of her more déclassé friends.” He nodded at the cloaked figure by her side. “I can’t see your companion, but I doubt he’s of her rank either.”
“Doctor Forman, do as I say: leave her alone.”
He laughed again. “You? Order me?”
Emilia held his eyes. “Stop giving her the potion.”
He shook his head and gave another snort. “The lady is of age. She can decide for herself.”
“If you do not, you will be sorry.”
The doctor smiled. “What will you and your mysterious friend do?”
Moll stepped forward, threw back her cloak, and put her hand on her sword.
Simon Forman drew back, his laugh an uneasy croak. “Mistress Moll Cutpurse! You turn up at the oddest times.”
Moll fixed him with a hard, gray stare. “Do as Mistress Lanyer bids. Or you will be in worse trouble than you have ever been.”
“What trouble?” He looked shaken but stood his ground.
Moll put her hand on her sword. “I can give you plenty of trouble, old man. I know you of old. And you know me.”
“I fear you not,” he said to her in a cold, scornful voice. “Nor your upright-coves and rogues and rufflers. I can route you all with spirits that will tear you limb from limb.”
“Stow yer bene!” barked Moll. Out flashed her sword, and quicker than Emilia thought could happen, she held the point at his throat. “I’ll slit thy smellin’-cheat an’ stuff thy jockam in thy gam as ready as I’d cast me glaziers on thee, ye scrofulous, counterfeit crank!”
Simon backed up until he was pressed against the black curtain hanging on the wall. He said in a strangled voice, “Remove, I pray you, that blade from my throat.”
Moll lowered it, fixing him with her eyes all the while. She watched him as he breathed deeply, shuddered, and straightened himself, smoothing his robe.
He cleared his throat and shrugged. “The little Countess isn’t worth my time.”
Moll gave a half-smile. “I thought ye’d see reason.” She stepped back, sword still out. “Tell her to go elsewhere for her spells and poppets. Or, better yet, to make the best of things. Agreed, Doctor Forman?”
The doctor grunted. “Agreed.”
Moll sheathed her sword and touched her hat. “I give ye good evening. Shall we go, Mistress Lanyer?”
They went back across the marsh in silence, Moll holding the rushlight high, Emilia leaning on the other woman’s arm. She was full of questions, but they could wait. That is that, she thought. I am now done with Doctor Forman forever.
CHAPTER 20
Poetry and Patronage
June-September 1610
“So ye’re a poet?”
“I’ve written verses, but mine are like a candle in the sun compared to his.”
“But they’re yer own,” said Moll, leaning forward, eyes earnest. “Let me hear them.”
Emilia read from the poem about Eve: “‘Our Mother Eve, who tasted of the Tree, / giving to Adam what shee held most deare, / Was simply good, and had no power to see, / The after-coming ha
rme . . .’”
“Go on,” said Moll.
“Are you sure you want to hear it?”
“Quit askin’ and read!”
Emilia read of how Eve’s fault was small, compared to what men had done, for they had crucified the Lord, and that was a sin worse than all others combined. “‘Then let us have our Libertie againe, / And challendge to yourselves no Sov’raigntie; / You came not into the world without our paine, / Make that a barre against your crueltie; / Your fault being greater, why should you disdaine / Our being your equals, free from tyranny?’”
Moll slammed her hand down on the table. “That’s what I say! Women should live free, as men’s equals—with ’em or without ’em, as they please.” Her eyes flashed. “I’ve fought many a sorry cove what thinks he’s got a right to abuse a woman. But he don’t, be she doxie nor dame.” Her eyes flashed. “Finish it, Mistress Emilia, and no excuses. I would hear the rest, and soon.”
As Emilia wrote, she imagined Christine of Pisa looking over her shoulder, whispering in her ear. Go on, whispered Christine. I did what I could; now it’s your turn.
She finished the part about Eve. Then Pilate’s wife appeared and demanded to be heard. She told her husband to have nothing to do with this man, for a dream had warned her. Do dreams foretell the future? Emilia wondered. Or are they the mind’s mere phantasms, airy nothings? She remembered her dream of a book with a Latin title: Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum.
She finished the poem.
Then she heard Lady Cumberland’s voice saying, Write it, my dear. Write it for me. What if she wrote the poem that Lady Cumberland had asked her to write so long ago about Cookham? Maybe it would move her heart to forgiveness.
Emilia wrote about the shaded paths, the beds of flowers and herbs, the spacious house on its hill among wooded slopes and ravines, the view across green, checkered fields and hills rolling into the blue distance. She told how Anne had kissed the great oak and then how she herself had done the same.
She thought, I could get it printed. Why don’t I put these two poems into a book and dedicate it to Lady Cumberland and Lady Anne? Then she had another idea that astounded her in how obvious it was. If I dedicate it to them, they might become my patrons, like Will and Southampton. Like Lady Bedford and Ben Jonson. In fact, why not write a dedication to Lady Bedford? She had never heard of a woman writing a book and getting a patron. But why not try?
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